Con Academy (10 page)

“See for yourself,” she says, and hands it to me.

“Whoa.” The book fills my arms with surprising weight. “You know, it's funny—when I woke up this morning I never thought I'd be holding a five-hundred-year-old Bible.”

“Connaughton acquired this particular one thirty years ago from a private collector in the U.K.,” she says.

“It's beautiful.”

“The workmanship is exquisite.” Gatsby reaches down and runs her black fingertip along the two long columns of Latin script. “There are only forty-eight known Gutenbergs remaining in the world. All the originals were printed on high-quality linen paper imported from Caselle in Piedmont, northern Italy. It was one of the most important centers for papermaking in the fifteenth century. Every page had an authenticating watermark—either an ox head or a bunch of grapes.”

“Huh.” I stare at the pages for a long time. “That's weird.”

“What?”

“The watermarks.” Squinting, I hold the book up to the light, angling it this way and that, and turn the page. “This page doesn't have either one.”

“You just need to look closer.” Gatsby leans over my shoulder until I can feel her hair tickling my neck. She doesn't say anything for a second. Holding the Gutenberg between us, we turn the heavy pages together, the heavy, brittle paper rustling like autumn leaves. The room falls very still. When Gatsby speaks again, her voice is slow, almost a whisper.

“You're right,” she says. “There's no watermark.”

“So at least part of this edition is . . .”

She looks at me. Nods. “A forgery.”

“Whoa,” I say. “I can't believe the school bought a fake.” Given the amount of money and prestige at stake, I'm impressed that somebody managed to pull off a bogus sale. Come to think of it, I wouldn't mind talking a little shop with the counterfeit dealers. “Do you think Dr. Melville knows?”

“The whole thing might not be a forgery. Maybe there were just some missing pages and they got replaced with duplicates. Still, that means it's not completely authentic.”

“Crazy.” I glance around the room, and now I'm wondering how many of these other priceless books might contain forged pages.

“Come on.” Gatsby reaches over to take the Gutenberg from my arms. “We should lock this back up again before somebody finds us down here.”

Five minutes later we're back at the circulation desk, out of breath and trying to act casual while Gatsby takes a seat behind her computer and starts checking in books. “Stop looking at me like that,” she says.

“Like what?”

“Like we just did something illegal.”

“We didn't,” I say. “I just haven't had this much fun in a library since . . . well, ever.”

“Fun?”
She picks up a book and slides it under the bar-code reader with trembling hands. “We just discovered that the crown jewel of Connaughton's rare books collection is a forgery.”

“Well, anything that starts out with overriding an alarm system can't be all bad.”

Gatsby just looks at me. “I still can't believe it. It's incredible.”

“I know.”

“It just never occurred to me that it could be a fake,” she says. “How could anyone do something like that?”

“Yeah, I know.” The truth is that people like me are always trying to figure out a way to fake something and pass it off as real—rare books, business contracts, deeds to nonexistent real estate. “People will surprise you, I guess.”

She glances at the phone on her desk. “We have to tell somebody.”

“Like who, the library police?” I shake my head. “I think maybe for right now we should keep this to ourselves until—”

“Hey, bro. Where you been?”

I stop midsentence and look around to see Brandt standing there with Andrea on his arm. For a second, he just glowers at me, and then his face breaks into his easy-like-Sunday-morning grin. Andrea is already smiling, bright-eyed and cute as a button above her scarf, her cheeks apple-red from the chill of the day. Brandt slams me on the shoulder with a bone-jarring
thwack.

“How's it going?” He leans down, voice dropping to a whisper. “Glad to run into you here. I wanted to talk to you about that opportunity you mentioned the other night. When can we go see this boss of yours?”

In the moment of silence that follows, I can feel Gatsby's questioning eyes on me. “Actually”—I turn to flick a glance at Andrea, hoping my reaction comes off as looking nervous enough—“I'm not really sure if I can still—”

“Friday night is Homecoming,” Brandt says. “I won't be running the casino that night. We'll go together to talk to him then.”

“What about the dance?” Andrea asks.

“I'll put in an appearance and be out of there by eight.” He looks at me again. “Make it happen, okay?” His voice tightens. “Don't waste my time.” He turns to Andrea, who's pretending to look at the books on the circulation desk. “You ready, babe?”

“I'm always ready . . . babe,” Andrea murmurs, and leans in to kiss him with enough visible tongue that Gatsby and I are basically forced to pretend we're someplace far enough away that we can't hear the sucking noises they're making. We're talking feeding time at the aquarium. I don't even want to know what Andrea has to think about in order to sell it.

“I'll see you around,” I say, nodding toward Gatsby, and walk away. The last thing I see is Andrea's face smiling smugly at me as I head out the door.

I
T'S STILL DARK OUTSIDE WHEN MY CELL PHONE GOES OFF ON
Monday morning with a 702 area code—Las Vegas. It's five a.m. here, which means that where Uncle Roy is calling from it's not even early—it's still late.

“Hey, Uncle Roy,” I croak, shaking off the cobwebs while I scan the floor for an unopened bottle of Mountain Dew to pour over my brain and wake it up.

“William!” Roy's voice bellows, and I can hear the endless ringing of slot machines and the rabble of voices in the background. “Did I catch you sleeping?”

“No,” I say, “I was just getting up.”

Roy is my mom's uncle, making him my great-uncle and the single greatest old-school-confidence man that I know. For most of his life, he's lived in Vegas, working security before he became a full-time grifter like his favorite niece. Back when the old MGM Grand burned down in 1980, he was part of the retrieval team that the casino sent into the vault to get the money out, while the place was still smoldering. He and a handful of other guards carried the cash to a secret location to await pickup from an armored car. He used to tell me stories of hauling pillowcases stuffed with bills past the scorched bodies of gamblers who were melted to slot machines because they hadn't been able to walk away, even while the place went up in flames. At eighty-two, Uncle Roy is one of the toughest guys I've ever met, and he still hasn't gotten over Mom's death.

“Sorry I haven't had a chance to call you back, William,” Roy says. “I've been a little busy.”

“I thought you were taking it easy these days,” I say.

“Yeah, I've never worked harder than after I retired,” Roy says, chuckling, and I can hear the faint metallic
snick
of his lighter as he fires up what I'm sure is his twentieth cigarette of the night. “Where are you, anyway?”

“New England,” I say. “North of Boston. A prep school called Connaughton.”

“Posh digs,” he says admiringly. “So what can I do for you? Judging from the message you left, I'm guessing you're looking for funding?”

Good old Roy, never one to waste time. “Well, actually, I'm setting up a little con here,” I say, “and I was hoping I could hit you up for some seed money. And maybe a few guys in the Boston area that you could recommend?”

Roy bellows out smoky laughter. “Like mother, like son, huh?” The laughter becomes a wheezing cough, and I wait while it dies away and he gets his breath back. “Sure, I got friends in that neck of the woods. Some of them even owe me a favor. How many guys do you need?”

“Six.”

“No problem. What type are you looking for? Distinguished? Continental? Harvard Yard types?”

“Actually,” I say, “I'm hoping for some younger faces. Programmers. Silicon Valley by way of MIT.”

“Interesting,” he says, and I can hear him clicking buttons on a keyboard while an infinitely more complex array of switches and sprockets start turning in his mind. “Yeah, I can think of five guys right off the top of my head that I can get up there by tomorrow. What's the angle?”

“I'm running the online poker swindle on a mark here, a rich jerk sitting on a trust fund the size of Mount Everest. But in order to make it work, I need a full boiler-room setup with computers and phone lines. And . . .” I pause and swallow hard. “I kind of need it by Friday.”

“Friday?
This
Friday?” There's a long pause, and I realize Uncle Roy is laughing. “You don't ask for much, do you?”

“Sorry,” I say. “You know I wouldn't ask if I didn't really need it.”

“Same old William, God love you.” He chortles. “Hey, remember back when you soaked that entertainment lawyer for sixteen grand in Reno? You weren't even ten years old at the time.” His voice practically glows with fond recollection. “Geez, kiddo, your mom would be so proud.”

“Thanks,” I say.

“I'll be on the first flight out tomorrow morning.”

“Wait.” At first I think I've misheard him. “What?”

“My grand-nephew losing his cherry in the big con—you think I'd miss this for the world?”

“Uhhh,” I mumble. It's all I say, but when it comes to somebody as intuitive as Uncle Roy, it's one “uhhh” too many. When Roy speaks again, all the laughter has disappeared from his voice, replaced by a suffocating vacuum of suspicion.

“Your old man's involved in this, isn't he?” he asks.

“Well . . .” I can't lie to Uncle Roy. Even if I could, he'd know it in a second. “Kind of. But it wasn't his idea. I had to bring him in on the deal.”

“William . . .”
Uncle Roy groans. It comes out sounding like a growl, as if I'd just awakened a sleeping bear midway through hibernation. “Why'd you go and do that, kiddo? You know you can always come to me for help. Why'd you have to bring that dirtbag into it?” Uncle Roy has never liked Dad, even back before Mom died, and things have only gone downhill since then. “Is he on the sauce again?”

“Not that much.”

“Is he on the lam from somebody?”

“I don't know.” At least this much is true. In Roy's mind, Dad has always been the worst kind of grifter, careless and greedy, which makes him a walking occupational hazard. It helps explain why Dad spent the first part of my life in and out of prison, while Roy's never seen the inside of a jail cell. “You think I should cut him loose?”

“Too late now, kid.” Roy sighs. “If you drop him now, he'll queer the pitch. What's the nearest airport to you?”

“Manchester,” I say.

“Then I'll see you tomorrow.”

“You're still in?”

“Somebody's gotta keep your interests at heart,” my great-uncle says, and like that, he's gone.

A
FTER
U
NCLE
R
OY HANGS UP
, I
DECIDE TO LIE BACK DOWN
for five more minutes of sleep. The next thing I know, it's eleven o'clock (I guess the fancy-schmancy Connaughton blackout curtains really work). I've already missed World History and Economics, and the dimly functioning part of my brain manages to realize that I'm going to be late for English Lit, even if I could somehow magically teleport myself fully dressed to Mr. Bodkins's classroom.

“Crap!”
I jump out of bed, throwing on clothes and grabbing my backpack, then run across the already deserted quad and trying to come up with an excuse for my tardiness. My mind is a blank. It's probably ironic that I have no trouble fleecing somebody like Brandt Rush for untold hundreds of thousands or more while I still can't make up a decent story to explain why I'm late to English class, but right now I'm too stressed out to appreciate the distinction.

Ducking into the deadly silence of Mr. Bodkins's class, I'm instantly aware of the eyes of the entire class leveling themselves on me. Mr. Bodkins is hunched, red-eyed, and disheveled behind his desk, and fortunately he looks too hung-over from the weekend to notice me sliding in behind my desk.

“Pass your papers to the front,” he's saying, and I feel my stomach do a triple axel as I just now remember the assignment that Gatsby reminded me about yesterday, the five-page critical analysis that we were supposed to do on Hawthorne's “Young Goodman Brown.” Throwing a desperate glance straight back over my shoulder, I see my classmates already passing forward their papers. In the midst of it all, Gatsby gives me a quick once-over, and I'm guessing she already knows from my reaction what the problem is. As awkward as it may be, now is probably the time to go up and hit Mr. Bodkins with whatever sob story I can come up with and plead for mercy. I'm just hoping he won't try to stick my tie into the shredder.

The girl behind me hands up a stack of papers and I start to stand, figuring I'll carry them up to Mr. Bodkins along with a story about my dead grandmother. On my feet, I glimpse down at the paper on the top of the pile.

GRAVEN IMAGES:
STARING DOWN THE DEVIL IN HAWTHORNE'S
“YOUNG GOODMAN BROWN”

by Will Shea

I flip through five pages of perfectly cogent literary analysis, typewritten and double-spaced with my name on it, then glance back at Gatsby, stunned. She's not even looking at me.